“It doesn’t look like it has been used in years,” Sachin said. There were foot-high weeds growing in the pebbled area in front of the garage doors.
“I’m sure it hasn’t,” Cal agreed. He brandished an oversized key. “The basement is like a medieval dungeon. Here’s the key.”
“How appropriate. How long do you want your guest to remain here?”
“I’m not sure. It’s really up to her. I will give you a call.”
“It will be easiest at night.”
“I assumed as much,” Cal said.
They all climbed out of the car. Cal went to a stout side door. He used the key. Beyond the door was a stone stairwell. Just inside was an old-fashioned electrical switch with a rotating knob. He turned it, and the lights went on in the stairway. “Let me get the lights on below as well,” Cal said. He hastened down the stairs. At the bottom was a second stout door exactly like the first. It took the same key, and Cal opened it and turned on the inside lights. Behind, Sachin came down the stairs as well.
“What was this used for in Raj times?” Sachin asked.
“No clue.” Cal went to the sink to make sure there was water.
The room had a damp, cool feel and smelled like a root cellar. A few cobwebs hung from the ceiling. There was one large room with a sink, and two smaller bedrooms with cots, covered with thin, bare mattresses. There was also a small bathroom containing an old-fashioned toilet with its water-storage tank six feet in the air. The furniture was made of simple, unfinished wood without embellishments.
“Okay,” Cal said. “Let’s bring her down.”
“There’s a slight problem. She has no clothes except for a couple of bathrobes.”
“How come?” Cal asked.
“She was in the shower when we invited her.”
For a moment Cal worried about how to get some clothes for Jennifer but then decided it wasn’t necessary.
“She’ll have to make do with the bathrobes,” Cal said.
Returning to the car, Sachin asked Subrata to open the trunk. As the lid was raised, Jennifer squinted in the sunlight. Her eyes reflected a combination of anger and terror. Sachin had Suresh and Subrata lift her out and carry her down the stairs. Sachin and Cal followed. Cal carried the bathrobes.
“Where to?” Sachin asked.
“On the couch,” Cal said, pointing. “And remove the tape.”
It took a lot longer to get the duct tape off than it did to get it on, and it was painful in places, but Jennifer did not complain until they removed the gag.
“You fuckers,” she snarled the moment she could talk. “Who the hell are you people?”
“That kind of attitude doesn’t bode well for your visit,” Sachin said to Cal.
“She’ll settle down,” Cal said confidently.
“Like hell I’ll settle down,” Jennifer spat. When Suresh removed the last piece of tape from her legs, she leaped to her feet and bolted toward the stairs. Suresh managed to get a hold of her arm, and she reeled around and scratched him with her fingernails. He backhanded her viciously and knocked her down. It was apparent she was dizzy when she sat up; she was swaying slightly and didn’t get right to her feet. Her expression was momentarily blank but quickly cleared.
“She might not be the most pleasant guest,” Sachin said.
Cal draped one of the bathrobes over her shoulders. “Actually, you don’t have to stay here long,” he said to Jennifer. “We only want to talk to you, and then you can leave. I’ll even tell you what we need. Somehow you have become suspicious of the three medical deaths that occurred Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. Something has made you skeptical of the diagnosis on all three. We’d like to know what it is. And that’s it.” Cal spread his hands and raised his eyebrows. “That’s all we want. As soon as you tell us, we’ll take you back to the hotel. I wanted to give you a heads-up so you could be thinking about it.”
Jennifer glared at Cal. “I’m not going to tell you shit.”
“What do you think?” Jack asked. He stepped back. He, Laurie, Neil, and Arun were in the Queen Victoria Hospital basement cooler. With some difficulty, all four of them had gotten Maria Hernandez dressed in the clothes that Neil had brought from the Amal Palace Hotel. Jack had just added the pièce de résistance: his Yankees baseball hat. He had placed it so that the visor was slanted downward and covered most of Maria’s face to camouflage her other-worldly color.
“I don’t know,” Laurie said.
“Hey, she’s not going to a beauty pageant,” Jack said. “She’s only got to get by the guard at the end of the hall.”
They had Maria tied in the wheelchair and supported the best they could.
“I’m worried about the smell,” Neil said, making a face.
“That we can’t do anything about,” Jack said. He stepped forward and slanted the hat even more. “Let’s do it. If the guard complains, we just have to move a little faster. After all, they are going to know she’s gone the moment they look in here.”
“Is the van already out back?” Laurie asked.
“It is,” Jack said. “Now, here’s how we’re going to do this. Arun, you leave the hospital via the front door. I don’t want you taking any chance of getting into any trouble, which we might for absconding with this corpse.”
“Fair enough,” Arun said. “I’ll go now and come around the back. I want to ride with you so you don’t get lost en route to Gangamurthy Medical College.”
“Is your friend Dr. Singh going to meet us there?” Laurie asked.
“He is,” Arun said.
“Okay, see you outside,” Jack said to Arun as Arun opened the heavy insulated door and left. Then Jack turned his attention to Neil. “You push the beauty queen.” Glancing at Laurie, he said, “You walk along on the left side between Maria and the guard. Also, be prepared to support her if she starts to sag. I’m going to engage the guard in conversation. He and I are old friends since I’ve already passed him twice. Is everybody on the same page?”
“Let’s do it,” Laurie said. She looked at Neil, who had positioned himself behind the wheelchair.
“Let me check out in the hall,” Jack said. He pushed open the door and stepped half out. Glancing down at the elevator he saw Arun board. Looking the other direction, he could see the guard sitting in his chair. He saw no one else.
Jack opened the door all the way and motioned for the others to move. “The coast is clear,” he said.
No sooner had Neil negotiated the wheelchair over the cooler threshold than several doctors came out of the cafeteria.
“Jesus . . .” Jack voiced. The doctors acknowledged Jack as they passed, deep in conversation. Jack was afraid to look back but forced himself to do so. When he did, he saw that the doctors were already beyond Maria. Neil shrugged. Apparently, there had been no problem. Jack motioned for Neil and Laurie to pick up the pace to get by the cafeteria entrance to avoid any other confrontation.
The guard watched them approach. Jack arrived slightly before the others. “Hello there, young fellow,” he said. “You having a busy day down here today? We’re going to use this door. My mother is worried about how she looks and doesn’t want to run into any old friends.” Jack kept up the chatter as he tried to keep himself between the guard and Maria as they moved past. The guard made a meager gesture of looking at the others, but that was it. “I’ll see you later,” Jack said, as he backed out of the double doors.
“A piece of cake,” Jack mumbled, as he passed the others to get the van’s rear doors open. The concealed cord holding Maria had been provided with machinations for a quick release, and with a mere pull on one end, her torso came away from the wheelchair. Among the three of them, they got her into the van and the van doors closed.
Arun appeared from around the building.
“Why don’t you drive,” Jack said, flipping the keys to Arun. “You know where you are going.”
The group piled into the vehicle: Arun behind the wheel, Jack in the fro
nt, and Laurie and Neil in the second row.
“How about we get the windows down!” Neil said, impressed that the others could be so stoic.
“Let’s not act like we just robbed the bank!” Jack said. “But let’s not dillydally, either. What I mean to say is, let’s get out of here.”
Arun got the van engine going but then stalled the vehicle by not giving it enough gas. Jack rolled his eyes, thinking it was a good thing they hadn’t robbed a bank.
“What’s Jennifer doing today?” Laurie asked Neil. “Did she mind when Jack called you to bring over Maria’s clothes?”
“She was only too happy to have me go,” Neil explained. “I think she’s only now recovering to a degree from her jet lag. She said she thought she might sleep until noon or even longer and that I wasn’t to worry about her. She said if and when she woke up, she thought she’d get some much-needed exercise.”
Chapter 32
OCTOBER 19, 2007
FRIDAY, 11:05 A.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
The oversized key made an oversized sound in the lock when Cal turned it. “We’re never going to be able to sneak up on her.” He laughed back at Durell, who was behind him. He pulled open the door and supported it until he felt Durell could take it from him. “Lock it behind you with the bolt just in case,” he added, as he descended the stairs. At the bottom, he turned and waited for Durell to join him.
“She’s a tigress,” Cal said. “So we have to be careful. She was also stark naked when they brought her, which blew me away.”
“You have my attention,” Durell admitted. “Open the door!”
Cal put the key in, turned it, and pushed open the door. Jennifer was nowhere in sight.
Cal and Durell exchanged glances. “Where is she?” Durell whispered.
“How the hell do I know,” Cal responded. Cal pushed the door fully open until the doorknob hit the wall. “Miss Hernandez!” Cal called out. “This is not going to help.”
The two men listened. There wasn’t a sound.
“Shit,” Cal said. “We don’t need complications.” He stepped into the room. Durell followed.
“Let’s lock this door, too,” Cal said. He got Durell to move so there was room to close the door behind them. He threw the bolt. “She’s got to be in one of the bedrooms or the bathroom,” Cal said. At least he hoped she’d be in one place or the other. What had him particularly confused was seeing both bathrobes on the couch.
“We can see most of the bathroom,” Durell remarked.
“Okay, so one of the bedrooms. Come on!”
Cal walked across the room and approached the doorway. He pushed the door open all the way. The only furniture was the cot, a small night table and an old-fashioned lamp, and a straight-backed chair. There was also a tiny closet, the door of which was ajar. No Jennifer. Turning around, he stepped across the hallway and passed in front of the bathroom in the process. He then checked out the second bedroom. This room was a mirror image of the other except that there was no chair.
Durell, who had come up behind Cal and was looking over his shoulder, noticed the missing chair, and the words had barely come out of his mouth when there was an earsplitting, banshee-like scream that momentarily froze both men. Jennifer had launched herself out of the shadow of the small, shallow closet with one of the legs of the missing chair raised over her head.
Cal was able to react rapidly enough to move his head so that he took the blow on the shoulder. Durell was not quite so lucky. He took a direct hit on the top of the head and staggered backward.
With yet another yell, Jennifer turned back to Cal, but Cal had recovered sufficiently to lunge forward and drive into Jennifer’s naked body as if he were an NFL lineman intent on tackling her. And tackle her he did, while she tried desperately to hit him with her chair leg. They ended up on the floor between the wall and the cot, with Jennifer flailing at Cal but without enough arc to hurt him. By then Durell had recovered adequately to step forward and grab the chair leg. He tore it from her grasp. As suddenly as the battle had started, it was over, with both Cal and Durell forcibly restraining Jennifer.
“Holy shit,” Cal said. He let go of Jennifer. Durell did the same. All three scrambled to their feet and glared at each other. Durell was holding the chair leg, entertaining the idea of using it on Jennifer the way she’d used it on him. Blood was oozing from his hairline.
“That was not necessary,” Cal snarled.
“You are the ones that are keeping me in this Black Hole of Calcutta,” Jennifer lashed back.
Durell lowered his weapon, rationality gaining supremacy. But he still glared at Jennifer. Cal returned to the other room, wincing as his fingers found the highly tender spot where Jennifer had hit him on the shoulder, aiming for his head. He grabbed one of the bathrobes he’d seen on the couch and brought it back into the bedroom. He handed it to Jennifer and told her to put it on.
Cal returned to the other room and sat gingerly on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position for his shoulder. Durell broke off from literally challenging Jennifer to give him an excuse to hit her with the chair leg. He followed Cal and sat on the couch as well. Jennifer stalked out after him. She had put on the bathrobe and tied it. She defiantly stood with her arms folded. “Don’t expect any Stockholm syndrome from me.”
“I left the lights on in here to be nice,” Cal said, ignoring her comment. “Next time you resort to violence, the circuit is going to be thrown.”
Jennifer didn’t respond.
“We came back to hear if you’d given any thought to what I said when I left earlier,” Cal said in a tired voice. “We would like to know what made you suspicious about your grandmother’s heart attack. That’s all. You tell us that and you’ll be on your way back to the hotel.”
“I’m not telling you bastards shit,” Jennifer said. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go now.”
Cal looked at Durell. “I think she’s just going to have to think about her situation before she’s going to be cooperative. And I need to get some ice on my shoulder.”
“I think you’re right,” Durell said, regaining his feet. “And I’m getting an egg on my head, so ice would be mighty helpful.”
“We’ll be back,” Cal said to Jennifer. With his right hand trying to immobilize his left shoulder, he, too, got to his feet. He winced.
Jennifer didn’t speak as they limped to the door. Nor did she try anything with Durell still clutching the chair leg.
After Cal locked the upstairs outside door, Durell questioned if being nice to her was the right tactic.
“You’re right,” Cal said. Going inside the garage’s first bay, he opened the circuit-breaker box. It took a bit of a search to find the circuits for the basement, but once he found them, he unscrewed the fuses.
“A little darkness should help,” Cal said.
Later, as the two wounded men were crossing the lawn to the bungalow, Cal spoke up: “I told you she was a tigress.”
“You did!” Durell agreed. “She took me totally by surprise. I thought she’d be shitting in her pants. By the way, what the hell is the Stockholm syndrome?”
“No idea whatsoever,” Cal said. “What do you think the chances are that she’s going to talk to us? I’m not as confident as I was initially.”
“If I had to guess, I suppose I’d have to say I’m not confident at all.”
“We might have to talk Veena into coming to the rescue again,” Cal said. “She’s already spoken with her.”
“That’s an idea. She could be the good cop while you and I are the bad cops, you know what I’m saying?”
“I know exactly what you are saying,” Cal responded. “And I think it’s a terrific idea.”
Chapter 33
OCTOBER 19, 2007
FRIDAY, 11:35 A.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
These are better facilities than we have in New York City,” Laurie said, letting her eyes roam around the autopsy room at the priv
ate Gangamurthy Medical College. “Our autopsy room is over half a century old. It looks like a movie set for an old horror film by comparison.”
Laurie, Jack, Neil, Arun, and Dr. Singh were standing in the postmortem room of the pathology department of the medical school. Everything was new and the very latest. Its hospital, the Gangamurthy Medical Center, was a big player in the medical tourism industry, particularly with cardiac problems and particularly for patients from Dubai and other cities in the Middle East. An extremely grateful Mr. Gangamurthy from Dubai was the major donor, to the tune of one hundred million dollars.
“Unfortunately, I have a lecture in just a few minutes, and I am going to have to leave you people,” Dr. Vijay Singh said. He was a lightly complected man of sizable girth. He was wearing a Western jacket and tie, but a voluminous wattle obscured his necktie’s knot. “But I believe we have arranged for everything you might need. My digital camera is on the counter. We even have frozen sections available, as we provide them for the hospital. Jeet, my assistant, will be available if you need anything specific. Arun knows how to contact him, and he’ll come right in.”
Arun pressed his hands together, bowed, and said, “Namasté.”
“I will be off, then,” Vijay said. “Enjoy yourselves.”
“I’m feeling a little guilty,” Jack said, the moment Vijay departed. “Don’t you think we should have told him we stole this body and have no official permission to autopsy it?”
“No, because it would have made his decision more difficult,” Arun said. “This way he has no responsibility. He can claim he didn’t know, which is true. The more important thing is just to get it done without delay.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Laurie said. She and Jack had donned appropriate suits and gloves. Arun and Neil had just put on gowns. Knowing Maria’s history, no one chose to wear isolation hoods.
“You or I?” Jack said, as he gestured toward Maria’s naked corpse laid out on the only autopsy table.
“I’ll do it,” Laurie said. She took the scalpel and began making the traditional Y-shaped autopsy incision.